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Afghan Aid Groups Plan to Leave Over Karzai Decree

KABUL — Companies and aid organizations implementing hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S.-funded projects here say they are preparing to leave Afghanistan unless President Hamid Karzai amends a decree that outlaws their private security protection.

Mr. Karzai has ordered the dissolution of private security companies by January 2011, though he recently made an amendment that allows private guards to keep protecting foreign military bases or embassies. Mr. Karzai, who has not made a similar exception for aid and development organizations, accused private security firms of causing civilian casualties and colluding with the Taliban.

The aid groups and U.S. Agency for International Development contractors are increasingly worried about staff safety as violence continues to rise. Under Mr. Karzai's plan, private security guards should be replaced with Afghan police, a body seen by many foreign organizations as inept and unreliable.

One of the companies planning a pullout is Development Alternatives International, a USAID contractor helping implement the coalition's counter-insurgency strategy. Several DAI employees were killed or injured when its compound was attacked by the Taliban in the northern city of Kunduz in July; another expatriate employee was killed this month in a botched rescue attempt in the province of Kunar.

DAI's director of communications, Steven O'Connor, said the company is "planning for early close-down" of its local governance and community development projects as a result of Mr. Karzai's decree. "We remain hopeful that the decree will be modified, but as it is currently written we anticipate full demobilization [of the LCGD projects] by the end of December."

Many aid and development organizations can't operate in Afghanistan without protection from private security companies because of donor requirements or because their insurance companies require this protection.

USAID spent about $9.8 billion in Afghanistan from 2002 through 2009, according to official figures. This year alone, USAID expects to spend $4.2 billion in Afghanistan, more than a quarter of the country's GDP. The funds have built roads, schools and power plants for Afghan communities, among other projects.

"The ban will affect many aid projects," said Erica Gaston, a human rights lawyer for the Open Society Institute.

Although the U.S.-led coalition also believes that private security firms are problematic, military commanders were taken aback by the sweeping nature, and suddenness, of Mr. Karzai's decree.

Development work is an integral part of the counter-insurgency strategy employed by the coalition's commander, U.S. Gen. David Petraeus in Afghanistan. Through development projects, such as the ones implemented by DAI, the coalition hopes to build support among ordinary Afghans for the U.S.-led war and take the momentum away from the Taliban.

"Development work is an essential part of the COIN strategy," said U.S. Navy Captain Gary Kirchner, a coalition spokesman in Kabul.

But the Afghan government says it is confident it can provide adequate security to development and aid organizations once the ban on private security companies is in place.

The ministry of interior plans to train a special department of policemen to guard these organizations for a fee, the ministry's spokesman, Zemarai Beshary said.